April 20, 2008
About two months ago I found a lecture by Ben Witherington III in which he discussed the possibility of Lazarus being the beloved disciple. I was a bit blown away by this idea but there was enough substance to what he was saying that I spent the next week reading and re-reading the gospel according to John. Some quick searching online led me to a website called The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved. There I discovered that you could buy a copy of their book or read it online for free. So I spent the next hour or two reading through the book online and comparing it with the New Testament.
A short time later I discovered Ben Witherington’s blog and a related post about Lazarus. I decided to post about what I had found because it was so interesting to me. The next day I was offered a review copy of The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved and have just finished reading through it. It is written with a very sensational style which you will probably love or hate. I personally get easily distracted by visual noise, and so would have preferred if there was less use of italics or bold print.
Basically the first half of the book sets up the foundation for the second half of the book. After discussing how we approach the Bible, John son of Zebedee, and the beloved disciple the book finally introduces Lazarus as a prime candidate for the identity of the beloved disciple. I won’t go into any of the details because you owe it to yourself to read the book. Suffice it to say that there are plenty of examples to support the hypothesis and that I currently hold that this gospel was much more likely to have been written by Lazarus than by anyone else. While this hasn’t shaken up my faith, it has challenged me to keep an open mind to what are commonly accepted beliefs in today’s church.
My advice is that the next time you order from Amazon, pick up a copy of this book. If you are like me and use their Super Saver Shipping option you may have been annoyed in the past when your purchase was a dollar short of the $25 minimum. Well now you have an affordable little option to bump you over the threshold at a price less than the cost of shipping. If that virtually free option isn’t cheap enough for you then head on over to their site and read it for free.
April 20, 2008 at 6:49 pm
I haven’t read it. The arguments are interesting but mainly just conjecture - though some conjectures are better than others. Bauckham also has some good ideas and Lazarus isn’t one of them. Even so, all the Gospels are anonymous anyways - its mainly by tradition that that they have names attributed to them.
April 20, 2008 at 7:40 pm
Before Witherington and this guy, has anyone ever suggested that Lazarus was the author of the Fourth Gospel? I probably won’t ever read the book, so I’m interested to know if they can trace this belief through Church history. If they can’t, then I think that speaks volumes. If they do, then please let me know what fathers I need to read.
Thanks.
April 20, 2008 at 9:24 pm
i almost always tend to lean towards the traditional view on this sort of thing. a lot of people think there isn’t much to tradition, but i tend to lean towards thinking its pretty valuable.
hard to imagine… and i’m curious… but perhaps too conservative on these sorts of ideas to lean no-matter how good the ideas are… i’ll check it out.
April 20, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Thank you for the review.
I don’t hold with tradition, probably because I don’t have one, but I’m curious to know how he came to that conclusion. Not that I’m inclined to believe it though; rather it is curiousity about his line of logic.
April 21, 2008 at 12:07 am
It’s definitely enjoyable reading, at least to me anyways. Not that it changes the message of the gospel, but my perspective has been changed in regards to the last half of John’s gospel.
Nick, the two links for Witherington go back as far as the sources do so you would probably enjoy listening/reading him. I also recall a few commentaries I read that quoted older sources with the minority view of Lazarus as author. If I remember right, the three most common views on authorship are John, followed by Lazarus, followed by John Mark (I think).
Anyone who wants to learn more simply has to read the links.
April 21, 2008 at 4:57 am
A quick skim through the pdf of the book leaft me feeling the author was somewhat obsessed on the question. And the question does seem to me to be gloriously irrelevant to most significant questions of interpretation.
April 21, 2008 at 5:33 am
A couple of weeks ago I heard the German NT scholar Jorg Frei speak about the authorship of John’s Gospel. He follows Martin Hengel in suggesting a conflation of the disciple John with the later “John the Elder” - that is, the later elder John took on the mantle of the disciple John, and brought his tradition into the form of John’s Gospel as we know it today. I found this an interesting possibility, but I’m happy to be uncertain about it all at the moment.
April 21, 2008 at 7:37 am
I just re-read Witherington’s post, and he doesn’t provide anything in terms of support from Church history for Lazarus being the author of John. He conjectures quite a bit about how Lazarus being the author clears up what Papias said, but Papias certainly never identified the author as Lazarus. And that’s my main problem with this theory… apparently, no one thought of it before Witherington. Why is that?
April 21, 2008 at 10:14 am
About three weeks ago I read approximately a dozen commentaries on John, specifically the passages about authorship. I know that Witherington is definitely not the first to suggest Lazarus, and the idea goes back centuries, I just don’t know how far. I think that Bruce and Brown might be two that covered this pretty well, but it’s been long enough I don’t remember specifically.
Regardless, this post was not intended to persuade, but to suggest some reading for those who are interested. If I recall correctly, Kurk has hinted more than once this year at alternative authors for Mark’s gospel. I don’t remember the details there either, but I am probably going to look at that next.
Kurk if you read this comment can you elaborate or point me in the right direction please?
April 21, 2008 at 12:08 pm
[...] Stitt points to a book that also comes as a free PDF and e-book. It’s on that hardy old perennial of the identity of [...]
April 21, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Fellas, I’m taking a swipe at the TNIV, and I’d like your input.
April 23, 2008 at 7:00 am
Nathan,
Sorry to come to the conversation so late, but I see that Doug does a great job of laying out the problems with Phillips’s approach.
So I’ll only add that I think there’s great value in the questions. What if Peter wrote Mark’s gospel, if Paul made plenty of contribution to Luke’s (and Luke’s “Acts”), if John’s gospel and letters and Apocalypse are authored by different people (as is Willis Barnstone’s claim)? What if the letter to Hebrews is written by Priscilla (as is Adolph Von Harnack’s claim)?
The last question, which is always only refuted by “there’s no evidence to force us to think this,” is important. Silence seems to work against feminist recovery work. Seems to. However, one reason women have had to be silent, and anonymous or pseudonymous, in history and in history writing is because of misogyny and sexism.
Now, that’s not likely what you were asking for from me, but I do think our generation (but not ours alone) has done a job on our own histories. What if Priscilla did write Hebrews, and what if Mary of Bethany co authored John the gospel with her brother? Carolyn Custis James says Mary of Bethany is our first theologian. And we all know that John’s gospel says the “woman at the well” the Samaritan is the first evangelist; and the gospels collectively don’t disagree that women, after the resurrection, were the first apostles of Jesus to the men disciples ironically who were hiding. (PS Suzanne McCarthy posts today on a work of recovery of history.) Given our history, I think it’s always wise to reconsider what we’ve always been told.)
As Doug says, I probably would not have given Phillips’s book much of a look at all (for all the reasons Doug notes) except for your post. So thank you!
April 23, 2008 at 9:24 pm
Thank you Kurk. No time to leave a longer reply however. Been in the hospital all day and dealing with medical problems so not sure when I’ll be back. Hopefully something new this weekend.
April 23, 2008 at 9:49 pm
Nathan,
I knew something was up when you were all quiet all of the sudden. I’m also praying to the Great Physician–He’s a friend of mine–for you, my friend! Really, I hope you get better 100% real fast.
April 23, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Ooops. My wife is the one who was in the hospital and in pain. I am doing well fortunately.
April 24, 2008 at 5:27 pm
Nathan,
Glad you are well and that she was (past tense) in the hospital in pain. We’ll keep praying for complete recovery for her and for you and your daughter while yall all get back to normal.